All posts tagged Middle East unrest

Social media, which played a crucial part in Tunisia’s regime change, will be embraced by the country’s new government, Yassine Brahim, the minister of infrastructure and transport — as of two days ago — told a meeting in Davos.

“Young people were filming movies and spreading them on Facebook and Twitter” during the uprising, he said.

The new government is “aiming to leverage this medium,” he said. “Democracy is becoming horizontal. We don’t have a charismatic, populist leader.”

He noted that during the government’s first meeting, another new minister, who was in jail until three weeks ago for his opposition to the old regime, “put it on Twitter.”

“This is a danger that’s not taken into account by investors,” Mr. Pankin told Dow Jones Newswires at the World Economic Forum annual meeting. If Egypt’s problems cross borders then “there could be some problems for the debt market, especially in emerging markets.”

While Mr. Pankin sees a calmer year overall in 2011, investors are on alert for the next crisis trigger since the “debt problem in Europe is more or less clear.”

Mr. Pankin said he was “very impressed” by the U.K.’s efforts to cut its deficit, and he sees the worst European problems in Portugal and Greece because their economies are much less diversified. Mr. Pankin oversees debt issuance for Russia, which has the world’s third-biggest foreign reserves after Japan and China.

Despite high oil prices, Russia will most likely sell a ruble Eurobond this year after plans for an earlier issue were halted at the end of last year amid market concern about Ireland. “It would be interesting to explore this new instrument” denominated in rubles, he said, adding that the issue would likely be between 50 billion rubles ($1.7 billion) and 70 billion rubles, or 90 billion rubles at the most. The timing depends on his evaluation of market conditions, he said.

Russia will probably have a small budget deficit this year even if oil prices rise further, Mr. Pankin said. Still, domestic borrowing could easily cover the shortfall assuming continued strength in commodities, he added.

Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao said “Egyptian authorities” had asked the company to “turn down the network totally.” Mr. Colao said Vodafone determined that the request was legitimate under Egyptian law, and therefore complied with the request. “I hope” the decision will be reversed by Egypt “very soon,” Mr. Colao said, in comments to a Davos session on mobile devices.

Earlier Friday, U.K.-headquartered Vodafone had said in a statement that all mobile operators in Egypt had been “instructed to suspend services in parts of Egypt. Under Egyptian legislation, the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it.”

The move came as the Eygptian government’s crackdown on protesters intensified with access to most forms of mass communication, including the Internet, mobile and SMS shut down. Landlines were still working, however.

Follow the latest news from Egypt and the region in our Dispatch blog.

About Davos Live

Davos Live provides updates from the World Economic Forum’s annual talkfest in Davos, Switzerland, which draws more than 2,500 business, political and academic leaders for a five-day program of workshops and panel discussions. A team of reporters and editors from The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires is on the scene, and will be posting news, commentary and gossip as the conference unfolds.